Urban Legend

 Urban Legend 

 “Did you hear the one about the serial killer who murdered people in the style of famous urban legends? It’s not an urban legend itself, but the movie is called “Urban Legend” 

There are a few places in our lives where we should feel safe. At school, at work, definitely at home, and most of all, in our cars. As long as we drive carefully and stay alert, we’ll have a safe trip. Unless we’re unlucky enough to have some idiot on the road involve us in an accident, or even worse – have a maniac hiding in the back seat with an axe! 

This is the nightmare for anyone driving down a dark, highway at night in the rain, and it’s also the opening scene for “Urban Legend”. The premise of this film is straightforward enough; a group of college students start getting murdered in the fashion of famous urban legends and folklores. And our first doomed victim is a young woman driving alone in her car. She pulls over for gas, when the attendant spots something in her back seat, and asks her to come inside. Thinking he’s going to attack her, the girl runs back to her car and drives away. The station attendant tries to scream out in the noise of the pouring rain “Someone’s…in the…back…seat!” But it’s too late, as the girl speeds off. 

Moments later a dark figure appears in the rear-view mirror, holding a large axe. It swings, she loses her head, and that scary story you were told which was to warn you to check the backseat of your car before you get in, just became a reality. 

Coincidentally, the college this poor girl went to teaches a class on American Folklore and its students are attending a lecture on Urban Legends. In plain English, Professor Wexler (Robert “Freddy Kruger” Englund) explains just what an urban legend is. The students in the theatre look on with great interest, and we quickly piece together this group will be the films victims, and probably one (or more) of them is the killer. Usual Slasher Genre formula, you know? As interested as they are in all the legends they hear, none of them believe these stories ever actually happened, let alone could happen. Unfortunately for them, they’ll have to learn that lesson the hard way. 

Although the premise of Urban Legend is quite creative, the film slips into a sense of routine disposing of its characters one by one. But at least, if you’ve ever been curious to see what all those urban legends you’ve heard of would look like re-enacted, this is your chance. 

Did you hear the one about the guy and girl making out in their car in the woods? He gets out to take a leak, but doesn’t return. His girlfriend hears a noise on the car’s roof. Like a scratching noise. Or was it a dripping sound? Either way, her boyfriend has been hung from the tree above the car, and in the film, our heroine Natalie (Alicia Witt) is in the car with college friend Damon (Joshua Jackson), and guess what happens? 

Or did you hear the one about where the girl enters her room at night, hears a strange noise, but ignores it? But then wakes up in the morning with the words “Aren’t you glad you didn’t turn on the light?” written on the wall. You probably haven’t, but that gets a creepy treatment in this film. 

As you can guess, the film works through most of the scary stories you would have heard in school or at a slumber party with friends. We love to be scared, and scare each other, and the common theme between most urban legends is about exercising caution. Whenver a story is told, one of the characters does something stupid or negligent, immediately putting their own safety at risk. In the story, they learn that lesson, usually paying with their life, or maybe their kidneys… heard that one about the guy who was drugged by a woman at a nightclub then woke up the next morning in a bathtub full of ice with his kidneys missing? They then get sold on the black-market, which may not be as far fetched as you might think but has it actually happened? That’s the Catch 22 with most of these stories, as they sound believable enough, but also preposterous at the same time. What came first? The incident or the story? Was there a case of a kidney heist that scared guy’s intro trying to pick up women at bars? Or did some creative character come up with that idea, spread it around, and it’s been retold and rehashed a number of times? 

Going back to the movie, what is the point for all these urban legend style killings? It’s common that serial killers choose one method of murder, and have a preferred type of victim, but in this film, every character is different and gets knocked off in a different way. It’s quite ironic they’re all linked to a college course about urban legends, but as the film reveals in the past history of its main character Natalie, she perhaps enjoyed urban legends a little too much. During a prank gone wrong, she and a friend caused another car to run off the road, killing its driver. The secret she tries to bury will come back to haunt her, and show her the extent an urban legend can have on people when carried out in real life. Such an extent, that it just inspired a certain someone to flip out, and enact revenge by killing everyone in the way they so casually talked and joked about.

In comparison to some of the better slasher films of the 90’s, Urban Legend comes in with a solid B+ rating from me. It has an original idea, but it’s not told in the most original way. The characters are a little one note, but you can’t like them too much as most of them will get killed. And in the end, the story of the urban legend serial killer will become something of an urban legend itself, so be sure to stay to the very end, to see how the twist to this new tale reveals itself. 

<<Return to List of Films